Instagram Reels Search & API: Viral Reels by Keyword

Instagram Reels Search

Search Instagram Reels by keyword or hashtag and get the top Reels for it: plays, likes, comments, posting time, duration, the MP4 video URL, cover, caption, hashtags, mentions and the creator, plus an engagement rate for every Reel.

{ "keywords": ["home workout"], "maxReelsPerKeyword": 50 }

No Instagram login, no cookies, no browser. Type the phrases you would type into Instagram's search; get one row per Reel. Use it as an Instagram Reels search API or a viral Reels finder: content ideas for your niche, trend research, influencer discovery, competitor and ad creative research, or a daily feed of the best new Reels on a topic.

What you get

Real example, 24 October 2026 (sorted by plays, posted in the last 3 months):

keyword	creator	posted	plays	likes	comments	engagement, %	duration, s
home workout	bigasian_fit	2026-10-06	17,201,048	403,839	7,248	2.39	27.4
home workout	fitpalreetesh	2026-09-12	16,867,694	hidden	337		23.5
coffee recipes	adriaccopa	2026-08-29	17,016,595	632,961	1,019	3.73	16.4
coffee recipes	adriaccopa	2026-09-21	15,381,811	1,106,530	848	7.20	19.4

Every row:

Field	Example	What it is
keyword, searchedKeyword, rank	home workout, home workout plan for a week, 3	your keyword, the keyword the Reel was found by (a related or close one) and its position in Instagram's results
reelUrl, shortcode, reelId	instagram.com/reel/DeIuGAwqJ6p/	the Reel
caption, hashtags, mentions	"Comment HOME and I'll send you…", ["homeworkout"]	caption text, its hashtags and @mentions
postedAt	2026-10-06T17:02:11Z	posting time (UTC)
plays, likes, comments	17,201,048, 403,839, 7,248	exact counts, as in the app (likes is empty when the creator hides them)
engagementRate	2.39	(likes + comments) / plays × 100
durationSeconds, videoWidth, videoHeight	27.4, 1080, 1920
videoUrl, coverUrl	scontent…cdninstagram.com/….mp4	the MP4 file and the cover image; Instagram links expire after a few days
ownerUsername, ownerId, ownerUrl, ownerVerified, ownerProfilePicUrl	bigasian_fit	the creator

The Reels view of the dataset shows the main table; Video, creator, tags shows the rest. Export to Excel, CSV, JSON or Google Sheets.

The KEYWORDS record (in the run's storage, linked in the Output tab) lists each searched keyword with its Instagram page, the number of Reels found, ~30 related keywords Instagram suggests for it and the short summary Instagram shows for the topic: a free list of Reels content ideas and long-tail keywords.

How to use it

1. Add keywords, one per line: a phrase (home workout, dubai real estate), a hashtag (#homeworkout) or an Instagram search link (https://www.instagram.com/popular/home-workout/).
2. Set Max Reels per keyword (Instagram shows up to ~90 per keyword).
3. Optional: Also search related keywords (each adds its own Reels), Sort by plays, likes, comments or newest, and the filters Posted after, Minimum plays / likes / comments. Reels that do not pass are free.
4. Run, then open the dataset or call it from the API.

Which keywords work? Instagram has a Reels search page for most phrases, but not for some broad one-word topics (coffee, fitness). For those the Actor looks up close keywords that have a page (coffee → coffee trends, coffee types...) with one Google search and returns their Reels. When nothing close exists, the run log says so: a more specific phrase (coffee recipes, home workout) works.

Why this Actor

	This Actor	Typical Reels search scrapers
Login, cookies	none	some need your session
Counts	plays, likes, comments and posting time in every row	varies
Engagement	engagement rate per Reel	rarely
More Reels per topic	related keywords Instagram suggests, one switch	you find the keywords yourself
Broad keywords	close keywords found automatically	empty result
Monitoring	only-new mode for scheduled runs	rarely

Monitor a topic for new viral Reels

Save your input as a task, schedule it every day or week and turn on Only new Reels since the previous run: each run returns only the top Reels it has not returned before (the first run returns everything and remembers it). Add Minimum plays to get only Reels that took off. Send new rows to Google Sheets, Slack, email or a webhook with an Apify integration.

Pricing

Pay per result, no subscription:

Event	Price	When
Reel	$1.29 per 1,000 ($1.09 on Scale, $0.99 on Business)	each Reel in the results
Close keywords found by Google	$0.01	only for a keyword without its own Instagram page, when close keywords are found; turn it off in the input
Run start	$0.001

Examples: 50 Reels for one keyword = $0.07; 10 keywords × 90 Reels = $1.16; a daily only-new check of 5 keywords ≈ $0.60 a month.

FAQ

Do I need an Instagram account? No. The Actor reads Instagram's public Reels search pages, the way a logged-out visitor sees them.

How many Reels per keyword? Up to ~90: the top Reels Instagram shows for the keyword, popular and recent ones mixed. For more Reels on a topic, turn on related keywords or add more phrases.

Is it the same as the search in the Instagram app? It is Instagram's own keyword search for logged-out visitors. The app's results are personal and change with your account; these are the same for everyone.

Hashtags? A hashtag is searched as its keyword (#homeworkout → home workout Reels). For every post with a hashtag, use a hashtag scraper.

Photos and carousels? No: the results are Reels.

Can I download the videos? Each row has videoUrl, the MP4 file. Instagram's links expire after a few days, so download them soon after the run.

Use with the API and AI agents

Run it from your code or an AI agent with the Apify API, the Apify MCP server or the Python and JavaScript clients; read the results from the dataset (?view=reels for the main table) and the related keywords from the KEYWORDS record.

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